Feb 19 : The Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix will move to Adelaide from next year after organisers favoured a street circuit, ending a nearly three-decade run on Phillip Island.
MotoGP Sports Entertainment Group and the South Australia state government on Thursday said they had signed a six-year agreement, with the first Adelaide race to be held in November, 2027.
“This landmark event will be the first MotoGP Grand Prix to be held in a city-centre location – with the uncompromised safety standards required in the modern era of the sport,” they said in a joint statement.
Unlike Formula One, MotoGP has never held a street race, primarily due to safety concerns.
The sports minister of neighbouring Victoria state, Steve Dimopoulos, said on Wednesday his government was unable to strike an agreement with MotoGP to keep the race at Phillip Island.
Dimopoulos said the government had balked at the owner’s preference for shifting the event to Melbourne’s Albert Park, which hosts a Formula One race every year.
“We know that we could have kept (the race) in Victoria, had we sold out Phillip Island. We were never willing to sell out Phillip Island,” Dimopoulos said.
Barring the pandemic-affected years of 2020-21, Phillip Island has hosted the Grand Prix every year since 1997. This year’s race is scheduled for October.
Retired Australian rider Casey Stoner, a two-times champion who won six times at Phillip Island, questioned why MotoGP would take “possibly their best circuit” off the calendar.
“One of the greatest motorcycle circuits in the entire world that has produced some of the greatest and most entertaining races we have witnessed, and continues to do so year after year, is being pushed to the side in place of a race in Adelaide and supposedly a street circuit,” Stoner said.
Among current riders, reigning champion Marc Marquez of Ducati has won four MotoGP titles at Phillip Island, with his last win coming in 2024.
